Crow Bait (8 page)

The sheriff came out of the cell blocks and hung the key on a wall hook. He turned and looked at Lancaster.

“I got a telegram that said you were coming,” he said. “I didn’t expect you to solve the robbery so soon after you got here.”

“I got lucky, Sheriff Carver,” Lancaster said. “I happened to know Gerry Beck’s methods. And there was too much lead flying around that office for Worth not to have been hit. It had to be deliberate.”

“Do you think he did any of the shootin’?” Carver asked.

“I don’t know,” Lancaster said. “He had a gun in his top drawer. You could check to see if it’s been fired.”

“You didn’t do that?”

“Not part of my job,” Lancaster said.

“But you questioned him.”

“That was part of my job,” he said.

“Did you find out anything?”

“Only that he was in on the job with Beck,” Lancaster said.

“And you believe he doesn’t know where Beck
is?” Carver asked. “That they’re not gonna meet and split the money?”

“No,” Lancaster said. “I believe he was cheated by Beck, who left him here to take the rap.”

Carver settled his bulk behind his desk. He was in his forties, had been sheriff of Henderson for over ten years. “So what are you gonna do now?”

“Try to find Beck.”

“How?”

“I’ll think about that over a steak,” Lancaster said. “Where can I get a good one?”

“Across the street. Bessie’s serves the best steak in town.”

“Thanks.”

Lancaster headed for the door, then stopped. “One other thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Have you ever heard of a man named Sweet?”

“Sweet? No.”

“What about Adderly or Cardiff?”

Carver gave it some thought.

“I don’t know those names, either,” he said finally. “Why are you askin’?”

“I’m tracking them.”

“All three?”

“That’s right.”

“Because of this job for Wells Fargo?”

“No,” Lancaster said. “This is personal, and just happened to coincide with this job. I know that one of those three men came here in the past few weeks.”

“Well, if they did they didn’t have any contact with me,” Carver said. “Looks like you better start checking hotel registers.”

“And rooming houses,” Lancaster said.

“So does this mean you’ll be in town for a while?” the lawman asked.

“Overnight, at least,” Lancaster said. “And I’ll have to send a telegram back to Wells Fargo in Laughlin.”

“Why’s that?”

“To tell them they’ll have to close down the local office until they can replace Sam Worth.”

“They won’t take too kindly to that,” Carver said. “Bound to cost them some business.”

“Unless they can replace him locally, which doesn’t seem likely,” Lancaster said, “they’ll have no choice.”

“Well, they only had the three men,” Carver said. “Two are dead and now one’s in my jail.”

“I’m sure they’ll be sending somebody from the home office to handle everything,” Lancaster said. “I’m going to go and get that steak now, and then I’ll start checking around town.”

“For those three men?”

“And for any trace of Gerry Beck,” Lancaster said. “He must’ve spent some time with somebody, and knowing Gerry as I do, I’ll probably have to start at the local whorehouse.”

“Likes whores, does he?”

“He loves women, whores or not,” Lancaster said, “and they like him.”

“Well,” Carver said, “even if Beck was in town long enough to go to the whorehouse, I didn’t cross paths with him, either.”

Lancaster didn’t like the sound of that. Beck had to have been in town long enough to case the Wells Fargo office. And since he was working alone, he’d
have taken his time. If the sheriff never came across either Beck or one of the other three, then he was the kind of lawman who ignored strangers in his town.

He was either a bad lawman or, after so many years at it in the same town, he’d become a lazy one.

The sheriff had been right about one thing. The steak at Bessie’s was so good it must have been the best in town.

He’d stopped first at the livery to get Crow Bait taken care of. He’d gotten the expected reaction from the liveryman, paid the man to take good care of the horse, and left him scratching his head.

After finishing his steak and topping it off with a slice of pie, Lancaster started hitting the hotels and checking registers. He started with the hotel he was staying in, the Shamrock. They didn’t show any guests named Sweet, Adderly, Cardiff, or Beck in the past month.

He’d arrived in town midday, so he had time to check the hotels and boardinghouses. It was dusk by the time he finished and he decided the saloons would be next, to see if any of the bartenders could help.

Henderson was a decent-sized town, with more saloons than hotels. It took longer to get a bartender to give up information about one of his customers than the desk clerk at a hotel. Desk clerks could be bought cheaper.

In the saloons he had to order a beer, and drink at least half of it. He had to stop after four saloons, or
end up drunk. The four bartenders he’d spoken to had never heard of any of the four men. Or so they claimed. He decided to leave the rest of the search for the morning.

He left the Hi-Lo Saloon and headed back to his hotel.

The bartender at the Hi-Lo took two beers to a table in the back. The two men stared up at him.

“We didn’t order no beers,” one of them said.

“Beck did,” the bartender said.

“Beck?” the other asked.

“He told me if anybody was in askin’ about him I should bring you some beers.”

The bartender put them down.

“Who was askin’?”

“Tall guy with the flat-brimmed black hat who was just in here,” the bartender said. “He’s been askin’ about four men.”

“Four?”

“One of them is Beck.”

“Who were the others?”

“Never heard of them.”

“Was it us?” one of them asked.

The bartender looked at them and said, “I ain’t never heard of you, either.”

He walked away.

The two men looked at each other.

“Whataya think?” Bill Kent said.

“I think if this hadn’t happened we’d be leavin’ town tomorrow, and all we did was sit around and drink beer to earn our money,” Wes Tyler said. “Now we gotta kill a guy.”

“That’s what Beck paid us for, Wes,” Kent said.
“Stay here one week, kill anybody who was lookin’ for him.”

“You know I’d rather earn my money sittin’ around drinkin’ beer, right?”

“I know it, but we can’t do it.”

“Why not?” Kent asked. “We can just pretend like we never heard what the bartender said.”

“Beck will find out.”

“We can blame the bartender.”

“Beck will find out.”

“Pretend like we left town without ever hearin’ about it—”

“Beck will find—”

“I know, I know!” Kent said. “Beck will find out and he’ll kill us. I get it.”

They sat there for a few moments in silence, and then Kent said, “Let’s finish these fresh beers and then go get it done.”

It took them a couple of hours to track down the man who’d been asking questions about Beck. They didn’t mind that, because by now the fella would be in his bed, sound asleep.

“Always easier to kill a sleepin’ man,” Kent said to his partner.

“I know.”

They were standing outside the hotel, getting themselves ready to go in.

“We’re gonna have to kill the clerk, too,” Kent said, “because he’s gonna see us.”

“Course he’s gonna see us, because we have to ask him what room this Lancaster’s in.”

“Lancaster,” Kent said. “Damn, but that name’s familiar. I just can’t place it.”

“Never mind,” Tyler said. “You can think about it later, after he’s dead.”

“Yeah, okay,” Kent said. “Look, after the clerk gives us the room number, lemme kill ’im, okay? I hate hotel clerks. Snotty little bastards.”

“Sure,” Tyler said, “the clerk’s yours. Are you ready to do this?”

“I’m ready,” Kent said. “Let’s go in.”

They started in and Kent put his hand on Tyler’s arm. “Wait, we gotta kill the bartender, too?”

“We’ll talk about that later.”

“Okay, but if we gotta kill the bartender, lemme do it,” Kent begged. “I hate bartenders. Snotty little bastards!”

Kent and Tyler decided the best course of action was the direct one. They’d kick in the door of Lancaster’s room and gun him down while he was in bed. What could be easier?

They crept down the hall, guns in their hands, after leaving the clerk behind the desk with a fatal knife wound in his chest. They had flipped a coin to see who would kick the door in. Tyler had won, so Kent was upset, even though he’d gotten to kill the clerk, like he wanted.

The floor creaked slightly beneath their combined weight, but neither of them noticed it. They were intent on what they had to do.

They came to the door and positioned themselves. Tyler was in front, Kent just behind him, ready to fire. He could hardly stand still, he enjoyed killing so much.

Tyler slammed his heel into the door just beneath the doorknob. The door opened with a loud, splintering sound, but to the surprise of both men the first shot came from inside the room…

Lancaster was ready for the two men. Because he knew Gerry Beck’s methods, he figured the man had left one or two men behind to take care of anyone
asking questions about him. It was the main reason he’d decided to retire to his room early. He hadn’t expected them to take so long to find him, though, and had almost fallen asleep. When the floor creaked beneath their weight, he heard it, because he had noticed it when it creaked beneath him earlier in the day.

You had to notice things like that if you were going to survive as long as he had.

When he heard the creak, he sat up straight on the bed and palmed Mal’s borrowed gun. He had spent some time earlier cleaning it, and dry-firing it to make sure it would function properly. He had supreme confidence in it as he waited for the door to open.

He was not, however, unmindful of the fact that someone might come through the window. He had perched the room’s pitcher and basin there as an alarm system, and was prepared for a double attack from both directions.

The door slammed open with a loud, splintering sound. A man with a gun was framed in the doorway and Lancaster fired once. He would have preferred a nonfatal wound, but didn’t have the luxury of being that precise. He simply fired dead center and hoped for the best.

However, there was a second man behind the first, partially blocked from view, and suffering the same disadvantage.

Lancaster decided to get off the bed so as to present an off-center target.

Kent was shocked by the sound of the shot and the flash of the gun from inside the room, but not as
shocked as Tyler, who took a bullet in the chest. He staggered back against Kent with a grunt, his gun falling from his hand.

Kent took a step back to let Tyler fall to the floor, and when he got a clear view of the room, he was looking at a man down on one knee, pointing a gun at him.

“Just twitch and you’re dead,” Lancaster said. “Be smart and drop it.”

Kent had his gun in his hand and was tempted, but at that moment a memory clicked into place.

“Oh, damn,” he said, “Lancaster,” and dropped his gun.

“Inside,” Lancaster said.

Kent moved into the room with his hands up.

“Close the door.”

“Lancaster,” Kent said, closing the door on his dead partner. “Now I remember. You used to ride with Beck.”

“Long time ago,” Lancaster said.

“I thought you were dead,” Kent said. “I think even Beck thought you were dead, and now you’re huntin’ him?”

“That’s right,” Lancaster said. “And you’re gonna tell me where he is.”

“That’s gonna be pretty hard,” Kent said, “since I don’t know where he is.”

“Then he paid you in advance?”

“That’s right.”

“And you and your partner are just so honorable you did the job anyway, huh?”

“Don’t kid yerself,” Kent said. “If I thought I could’ve got away with it, I woulda left town the day after he did.”

“So you’re afraid of him?”

“Damn right.”

“Are you afraid of me?”

“Hell, no.”

Lancaster cocked the hammer on his gun and said, “You should be.”

“You were somethin’ once, Lancaster,” Kent said, “and you killed my partner, but you’ll just kill me. What Beck will do to me…” He let it trail off.

Once Lancaster and Beck were alike. It seemed, over the years, that they had become very, very different. What was Beck like now that a man like this would rather die than face him?

“I tell you what,” Lancaster said.

“You got an offer for me?”

“I do.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“Let’s you and me go lookin’ for Beck.”

“You crazy?” Kent asked. “After I screw up killin’ ya, I’m gonna go with ya to find him? You know what he’d do to me?”

“No, but you keep asking me if I do, so I think I’d like to see.”

“You’re crazy,” Kent said. “The law here won’t let you take me.”

“The law here’s pretty lazy, or haven’t you noticed?” Lancaster asked. “What’s your name?”

“Kent.”

“Okay, Kent,” Lancaster said. “Even if he is lazy, the sheriff should be here soon. Make up your mind. Tell me what you know about Beck, or come with me to find him.”

“I told ya, I don’t know nothin’—”

“You may not know, but you’ve got some idea where he went,” Lancaster said. “Or where he’ll be.”

“You want me to guess?”

“If you give me your best guess, I’ll leave you here when I go lookin’ for him.”

“You serious?”

“I am.”

“And you’ll believe me?”

“It ain’t so much that I’ll believe you,” Lancaster said, “as it is I’ll know if you’re lying.”

Kent looked as if he was giving the proposal some thought.

“I’d think in a hurry if I was you,” Lancaster said. “You got until the sheriff gets here to make up your mind.”

Kent looked at Lancaster and then said, “Okay, you got a deal.”